Apple briefly passes Exxon as world's largest company by market cap

During a volatile day of trading on Tuesday, Apple briefly passed oil giant Exxon Mobil to become the most valuable company in the world, in terms of market capitalization.

AAPL stock closed the day below XOM with a market cap of $346.74 billion, pushed 5.45 percent higher by a 19.26-point increase in the stock price. Apple ended the day trading at $372.47 per share.

Exxon finished Tuesday retaining its title as the largest company in the world by market cap, a claim it briefly lost during trading on Tuesday. Exxon finished the day with a market cap of $352 billion, its stock having recovered from losses to go up $1.41 for the day, or 2.01 percent.

Apple's brief stay at the top on Tuesday came faster than most expected. The iPhone maker was separated from Exxon by about $70 billion only a few weeks ago.

Now only a few billion dollars sit between the market caps of Exxon and Apple, leaving the companies in a position to potentially swap places once again. Apple remains the No. 2 largest company in the world, having passed PetroChina Co. last September.

Apple surpassed its rival Microsoft in May of 2010 when its market cap reached $222 billion, but the iPhone maker has since left its rival in the dust. Microsoft's market cap Tuesday afternoon hovered around $210 billion.

AAPL trading prices from Tuesday. Chart via Yahoo.

By consistently turning in record quarters that exceed investor expectations, Apple has seen its stock pushed to new heights in recent weeks. In its last quarter, Apple's profits grew 125 percent year over year with record sales of 20.34 million iPhones and 9.25 million iPads.

And while Apple's market cap blew past Microsoft some time ago, the company surpassed the Redmond, Wash., Windows maker in terms of both quarterly sales and profits in April of this year. Prior to that, Microsoft had posted less revenue but greater profits than Apple.

In the history of American business, this company has got to be the most remarkable example of how to run a business enterprise. You can learn more about business management by spending a few months understanding how Apple does things than by spending 10 years at the Harvard Business School.

Apple does things with such efficiency, it is simply amazing. Everything from product design, product line development and pruning, outsourced manufacturing, supply chain management, marketing, advertising, distribution, selling add-ons (such as AppleCare), customer service, maintaining balance sheet strength - every business function is performed with great excellence.

Is there any wonder it is the most valuable company in the world?

And, there is lots of growth ahead. Even though Wall Street nincompoops may be unable to see it.

Do you want to sell oil for the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?

Imagine IF Microsoft and Google DID not license their work, wisely as Apple ?

: Just imagine?

: while yr thinking …

Another proof that German economic model beat the Anglo-Saxon ( USA & UK ) BIG time.
Apple success IS based on concrete "work" as Germany is based on manufacturing, while Google's and Microsoft's IS bases on dangling on OTHER's shoulders ( windows' PC and Android cartel vendors ) like UK and USA economic model after the 80's to these days.

Hope you learn a thing with this, otherwise China will make you eat yr pride ( for USA citizens ).

Another proof that German economic model beat the Anglo-Saxon ( USA & UK ) BIG time.
Apple success IS based on concrete "work" as Germany is based on manufacturing, while Google's and Microsoft's IS bases on dangling on OTHER's shoulders ( windows' PC and Android cartel vendors ) like UK and USA economic model after the 80's to these days.

Your analogy is terrible, utterly terrible. In fact Samsung is far more like the German model than Apple, Apple is a quintessentially american firm. A german firm on that scale would be building it's own hardware, it would likely be a conglomerate and based around cheap finance from a landesbank. Kinda like a Chaebol based around cheap finance from a captive private bank.

Another proof that German economic model beat the Anglo-Saxon ( USA & UK ) BIG time.
Apple success IS based on concrete "work" as Germany is based on manufacturing, while Google's and Microsoft's IS bases on dangling on OTHER's shoulders ( windows' PC and Android cartel vendors ) like UK and USA economic model after the 80's to these days.

Hope you learn a thing with this, otherwise China will make you eat yr pride ( for USA citizens ).

Interesting angle you take here. It assumes that design, software building, R&D, sales, management, etc., are all real work, just like manufacturing is for Germany. I agree. We don't really have terms for this shift into a post-industrial economy, other than maybe "knowledge industry." I think we could do better.

Anyway, it shouldn't be a matter of pride for Americans, but only of guarded optimism -- that the peculiar confluence of talent and expertise and adventurousness that began in Silicon Valley in the 50s and 60s can keep exporting something that the rest of the world actually wants. Besides bad stuff like fast food, that is.

Apple drew on the silicon experience in the valley and combined it with a 60s countercultural idea of wanting to "change the world." That is what they are exporting, with the crucial help of an ascendent industrial economy, China. So there's no room for pride here, just a hope that we can learn from this, like you say.

On the German vs. Anglo-Saxon paradigm, that could work if we just changed the terms. (Anglo-Saxons are Germanic, so your formulation doesn't really compute.) Better, maybe, to focus on the work and industrial traditions of central Europe, and thus you could include the Czech, Bohemian, Slav, Austrian and Swiss contributions, which are massive.

But I wouldn't know how to come up with snappy terms for the distinction. Work-centric vs. narcissistic? But I don't think the British are so self-absorbed like my fellow Americans are.

Edit: I think cloudgazer misinterprets. Germans have remained industrial because they are good and disciplined at it. US and UK no longer have the focus and will to put up with manufacturing development. You have to keep evolving in machine making, you can't just do the same thing like you always did. I see very few signs that GM and Ford get it. If anything they've become more perverse under the challenges they face from Germany, Japan and Korea.

Your analogy is terrible, utterly terrible. In fact Samsung is far more like the German model than Apple, Apple is a quintessentially american firm. A german firm on that scale would be building it's own hardware, it would likely be a conglomerate and based around cheap finance from a landesbank. Kinda like a Chaebol based around cheap finance from a captive private bank.

Don't forget that everything that they could get away with would be built in eastern Europe.

Unfortunately, even when Apple becomes the largest company by market cap, it's not going to get any respect from Wall Street. Absolutely nothing will change. Apple will continue to lag behind target prices, the multiple will likely compress even more and there will be a lot more chatter about Apple being too large and the prophecies of a major collapse. Even when Apple sits on the top of the market cap heap, the jackass pundits and knucklehead fund managers will continue to point out all of Apple's flaws and its disregard for shareholders by cheating them out of dividends.

I doubt if Apple will ever be able to convince investors and Wall Street that the stock is undervalued and that Apple has plenty of room to grow. As an Apple shareholder I'm not interested in whether Apple has the highest market cap or not unless it changes Wall Street's view of Apple as a powerful company to be reckoned with in the entire tech industry. I'm much more interested in seeing Apple share price at $450 or $500. I want some of the market cap wealth in my pocket.

Edit: I think cloudgazer misinterprets. Germans have remained industrial because they are good and disciplined at it. US and UK no longer have the focus and will to put up with manufacturing development. You have to keep evolving in machine making, you can't just do the same thing like you always did. I see very few signs that GM and Ford get it. If anything they've become more perverse under the challenges they face from Germany, Japan and Korea.

It's very very debatable. Actually the UK has a couple of amazing industrial firms, I'm thinking of Rolls Royce (the engine company) and British Aerospace. What makes these firms unusual? Massive ( government supplied ) cheap financing, much like so much of german industry.

The fact is that where cheap money isn't enough German discipline has proven insufficient, which is why Siemens is no longer a big name in handsets. In fact the only big German tech firm I can think of is SAP.

It's sort of a parlor game. Exxon Mobil still reports four times as much revenue as Apple and eight times as much profit.

BTW, the term "AAPL stock" used so often in articles on this site is a redundancy. The company is Apple, its stock ticker symbol is AAPL.

Your maths is stunningly bad. Apple made 7.31billion net profit last quarter. 8 times that would be 58billion. Do you really think that XOM made 58billion? If you do I'd like some of what you're smoking. They made 10.6billion.

That's 45% more than Apple, but hey, 45% or 700%, it's only a factor of twenty out eh?

Unfortunately, even when Apple becomes the largest company by market cap, it's not going to get any respect from Wall Street. Absolutely nothing will change. Apple will continue to lag behind target prices, the multiple will likely compress even more and there will be a lot more chatter about Apple being too large and the prophecies of a major collapse. Even when Apple sits on the top of the market cap heap, the jackass pundits and knucklehead fund managers will continue to point out all of Apple's flaws and its disregard for shareholders by cheating them out of dividends.

I doubt if Apple will ever be able to convince investors and Wall Street that the stock is undervalued and that Apple has plenty of room to grow. As an Apple shareholder I'm not interested in whether Apple has the highest market cap or not unless it changes Wall Street's view of Apple as a powerful company to be reckoned with in the entire tech industry. I'm much more interested in seeing Apple share price at $450 or $500. I want some of the market cap wealth in my pocket.

I agree it *seems* Apple gets no stock market respect. However, watch the blabbermouths on CNBC for a few days on end and you will begin to spot their pattern. They mix up the pattern just a little to keep it fresh, but make no mistake, they make a LOT of their money trading apple!! I think they have a plan to keep the P/E ratio as low as possible except when they want to let it rise or sometimes when they temporarily can't stop it from going up. The hedge fund guys are so close to getting caught, they better watch out. I think they had their short positions all lined up for the debt ceiling default and a bad jobs report and when neither really happened OH-OH! I'm betting they PAID S&P to give that little downgrade. This is part of their periodic keeping the market moving, or what I call 'flushing the toilet' only this time they took a plunger to it. Nothing moves on the stock market like apple does! Why do you think your broker gives it a 'C' rating all the time? Cause they don't want clients calling every time it plunges. It goes up and down a bit much for even a Growth stock. Well, look for the P/E to stay even lower, because of the climate these hedge fund guys have created! Oh but they love the quick pops they get on apple. These fund guys want utter CAPITULATION, then they set their table up for another disgusting round. Ok for them, but the IRA funds are so stupid they sell at the bottom. They can't very well ride it out, they aren't paid to sit and stare at the screen. Do your own investing. You really can. Apple is a good deal right now, buy some!

What is really factored into the price is a kind of perpetual sense of disbelief that any company could be as good as Apple is. ~Retrogusto

Your maths is stunningly bad. Apple made 7.31billion net profit last quarter. 8 times that would be 58billion. Do you really think that XOM made 58billion? If you do I'd like some of what you're smoking. They made 10.6billion.

That's 45% more than Apple, but hey, 45% or 700%, it's only a factor of twenty out eh?

Except that I am quoting directly from the financials for the last year.